I Won't Fall
by elleffsee
Summary: The impossible girl and an impossible choice leaves the Doctor alone. Again. Season 7 spoilers and also non-canon.


**Title:** I Won't Fall  
**Fandom:** Doctor Who  
**Characters:** The Doctor/Clara Oswald; mentions of Madam Vastra, Jenny, Strax, the whisper men  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**WARNINGS: season 7 spoilers!** Also: AU, non-canon and character death

**Words:** 1,881

**Summary:** The impossible girl and an impossible choice leaves the Doctor alone. Again. Season 7 spoilers and also non-canon.  
**A/N:** I heard the song Titanium by Sia and was like "oh my gosh that's catchy!" but then I heard the acoustic version and it was SO much better, and in my opinion, a lot sadder. So… of course this happened. Originally I was going to go with Rose but then my liking of the Clara/Doctor pairing pushed Rose away. :\ Anyway… I hope you guys like it :) and if you like, I suppose you could substitute Rose for Clara…just tweak a few details, if you like

The whisper men were coming, getting closer, and the thrill that usually followed a monster chasing the Doctor and his companion was noticeably absent this time around. The Doctor wasn't afraid, of course, but he did wish he hadn't been subjected to Simeon jumping into his time stream—no that wasn't right; it'd been the Great Intelligence that had agonizingly waltzed into his timeline.

The Doctor kept a tight grip on Clara's hand. She'd managed to regain consciousness and full faculties again, but he wasn't going to risk getting separated from her here. It was too dangerous and any minute now his own timeline would collapse; they had to escape from here and from the other doctor.

"Doctor…they're not following us anymore. They've stopped." Clara managed.

"They haven't stopped, Clara, you just can't see them anymore." The Doctor tried to use his sonic screwdriver but it wasn't working anymore. Typical. His eyes scanned the scorched earthwork path in front of him. He saw the damaged TARDIS ahead. Where else was he to go? He pushed it to the side and surged forward to his favorite blue box.

"How do we get out of here?" Clara asked, keeping up with him.

"No idea."

"Let me guess, no plan, either?"

"Still in progress at the moment." The Doctor pushed the doors of the TARDIS open, ignoring the lamenting wail the hinges of the doors cried out about. "Sorry, love, I'll fix you as soon as I can." He mumbled and dove for the console.

Clara looked out the doors and checked for any of the whisper men or the other Doctor but saw no one. She could hear the Doctor tinkering and cursing under his breath as he tried to get the ancient TARDIS up and running again.

She heard a loud sigh, and she turned to check on him. The Doctor's forearms were braced against the console and he had a deeply thoughtful look on his face, so Clara said nothing. She wondered fleetingly just how many other times he'd had the same look on his face before a brilliant spark of genius would cross that mind. She waited patiently and turned back to face the dying timeline in front of her to give him some privacy.

She thought she saw something in the distance, but she didn't get a chance to mention it before the Doctor had slammed his fists on the console.

"Work!" He yelled and the TARDIS gave a great shuddering groaning sound. Clara spun to face the inner part of the ship again and saw that a few lights had begun to flicker on. She felt a smile start on her face.

The Doctor had a somewhat surprised look on his face. "Well if that's all it would've taken…" he muttered before he moved quickly around and started to flip levers and switches, spin some knobs, and connect some wires. Clara felt a great relief when the familiar noises of the TARDIS started to hum to life.

She took a step inside the blue box and turned to face the Doctor.

"It's working! Let's get out of here, silly boy." She smiled and felt relieved.

The Doctor still wasn't facing her. "That's the intention. Come on sexy girl, get us home." He murmured to the console and affectionately stroked one more button before pressing it with the right coordinates locked into the computer. The TARDIS gave a sudden lurch but she was moving again and the Doctor smiled.

"Close the door Clara. Drafts are nasty business." The Doctor replied before glancing up. His eyes suddenly went blank.

Clara turned and then froze completely. A scream was half-way up her throat before it was stopped. There, directly on the other side of the door of the TARDIS, a whisper man had caught up to them and had launched his hand straight into her chest, to take her heart.

Clara felt like she had earlier and she started to gasp for breath.

The TARDIS was moving but she was too slow, asleep and dead for too long to move with any agile grace right now. The Doctor moved forward, a loud shout of "leave her" echoing around the engine room, with his sonic screwdriver pointed directly at the creature in the top hat.

The whisper man hissed and smiled with it's sharp teeth before speaking in its eerie voice. "It's too late doctor. The impossible girl is dead."

The Doctor was at Clara's side just as the TARDIS finally propelled them away from the creature and right as Clara began to fall to the floor. The Doctor caught her before she could fall all the way and held her to his body. He stroked her hair and stared at her face. She still gasped for breath but she was paling quickly and he could tell, even without Strax's methods, that she was fading fast.

"Doc—doctor…" She struggled to say. For the second time that day, the Doctor felt tears in his eyes.

"You'll be all right Clara. I'll see to it." He said and smoothed her hair away from her forehead.

She smiled slightly and labored for breath. "The…doc—doctor lies."

The Doctor paused and swallowed hard, desperately trying to think of anything to say to that. "Not to you. Not anymore."

Clara smiled her half-smile once more before her usually animated and lively face finally froze, her eyes glancing somewhere just over the Doctor's shoulder. He swallowed hard and shook her slightly.

"Clara. Clara!" He knew it was no use but he tried anyway. "I need you to come back. You're my companion. My friend."

Clara didn't move and her body remained still underneath his hands and he shook his head.

The TARDIS landed a moment later exactly where he had instructed; the outside of his tomb on Trenzalore. He could hear Vastra and Jenny coming towards him, Strax was nearby too. The Doctor didn't look up, nor did he otherwise greet his friends. He simply remained holding Clara against his body with his eyes closed. He wouldn't admit it, but he was rocking back and forth slightly, holding her close.

"Doctor! Doctor what happened?" He could hear Jenny asking, the TARDIS door opening to his side.

"Clara!" Madam Vastra was next. "Strax, get over here, quickly!"

The Doctor didn't listen to his reply before he slowly allowed himself to release Clara and shift backwards onto his heels. Clara's body slid to the floor of the TARDIS and she still continued to look never-seeing to the sky.

Strax was running a check over her human systems, reporting no signs of life as he went. Vastra was standing near to Jenny and watching the Doctor with sympathetic eyes.

"But… she's not truly gone right? She did put herself into your time stream…" Jenny tried for a hopeful look at the Doctor but it was caught between hope and a grimace.

The Doctor made an attempt to swallow the lump in his throat and shook his head before speaking detachedly. As if he were reading a clinical description.

"That was the original Clara, the one that all the copies came from. The one I went to save. She's dead."

"But the copies are still—"

"Only copies." The Doctor returned bitterly before saying in half-bitter amusement. "That was after I had bound the copies back to the original form in my timeline." The Doctor whispered while staring at Clara's face. "There was only one left, the original."

The other three were silent as they stared at Clara's body. It was Jenny that spoke.

"Doctor we have to go. The timeline still hasn't been restored completely. There's still star-systems missing."

The Doctor nodded, but a look of disgust was simmering on his face. "More people that trust me to save them." He stood in anger and spun around so that his back was facing them. His fists clenched and unclenched before he spun back and pointed to the lifeless body on the floor.

"They all die! I am responsible for them and I can never keep them safe. All of them. They sacrifice themselves for me, I let them; they care for me, and I them, but what's the use when all they do is end up hurt, alone, or dead because of me? They trust me to save them in time before it's too late, before they truly are dead. I wonder how many of them have closed their eyes or hoped in some part of their mind 'just a little longer, the Doctor's coming, he'll save me' only to end up disappointed and alone at the end when I couldn't save them in time. I can't fix everything, I can't save everyone!"

Vastra watched his rant and shook his head. "You can, Doctor. You always have before. What we sacrifice, we do it because we know that you can save us all. If we have to die in the process, we do so willingly if it will save the lives of others. We're not stupid, Doctor, please stop treating us as though we were. We know the cost and we pay it."

The Doctor looked away and saw his TARDIS, the one that hadn't been ruined by time and decay. They were right, he had to go now if any of those other star systems had a chance or a hope of staying alive. Daleks, cybermen, weeping angels… they all needed to be stopped, them and hundreds of others. He could be cruel, but they were right, the worlds needed to be saved again and he had to go.

"One thing first." The Doctor picked Clara up, held her close to him, and carried her forward.

Her soap came into his senses and he swallowed past the pain. She hadn't been his companion for long, but it was long enough. She had loved him; he'd been sure of that. It was taking him a long time to admit it, but he had had that fondness for her as well.

He carried her into the doors where the bright once-again white light of his time stream was illuminating the decaying console of his TARDIS. He laid Clara down at the base of the white light and folded her hands across her abdomen and he stared at her like that. She had deserved better.

Then again, all of them had.

Closing his eyes, he took a breath and turned to go.

Vastra stood at the door and he walked past her without saying a word. He walked up the hill to his TARDIS and didn't look back once. He could hear the other three behind him and following him up the hill. There wasn't a sign of whisper men again, something he was grateful for.

His mind was on autopilot trying to find a way to counter the great intelligence's masterful move and save everyone, including Clara. The door of the TARDIS shut behind Jenny and he began to turn her back on and plot a course back to Earth to start saving humanity as well as all the other living species and races throughout the universe and galaxies.

He was the Doctor, and he had a job to do. In the name of the Doctor, he had to save them.


End file.
